Reviving the Blog

My last entry to this blog was dated September 24, 2007. It is linked to my 43Things resolution to keep up blogging for a year, and the last entry in that blog read as follows:

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Now – while my energies need to go into finding a new situation – is not the time to do blogging for its own sake. Part of having priorities is knowing what to cut from the To-Do list. So I’m laying this aside.
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I will revive this when less is weighing on me, and when more readers are there to make it worthwhile.
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Who would have thought it would take me so long to "find a new situation"? So much has happened since then! I went into the Peace Corps and served for 26 months in Morocco. I returned to the U.S. and looked for a job, didn't find one for a long time, and so re-entered the Peace Corps and served for 4 more months in Benin. Then I returned and looked for a job again, but by this time, the job market had thankfully improved. It still took awhile, but I did find one.

Now although I am still looking for a good place to live (ideally with a great kitchen), I am temporarily located in an efficiency apartment and am getting to know my new city: Champaign, Illinois. I haven't yet moved my things (including all my kitchen tools and equipment) here. That will have to wait for my more permanent digs.

I am finding myself in this tiny kitchen a lot, however. It's such a pleasure to have a kitchen of one's own, even a small, ill-equipped one! I did have kitchens in Morocco and Benin, but blogging from there wasn't possible (no internet or very slow internet). Food was sometimes a challenge. The availability of ingredients was far from what we have here in the U.S., but I developed some quite tasty recipes that I will share here as time goes on.

Meanwhile, I find myself drawn to blogging again, even in my basic little "kitchenette." I've always maintained that a good cook can make good food under any circumstances, so I'm certainly not going to let my kitchen be the vetoing factor in the decision to restart my food blog. Champaign has a Farmers' Market in the summer (I am headed there this morning) which, although it can't hold a candle to the Santa Monica market, at least does have fresh, overpriced produce of reasonable quality. Plus it has Meijer's supermarkets, which have a HUGE variety of fresh produce, and County Market, which has good meats and fish.

So let the blogging begin! If nothing else, I can begin by talking about kitchens, since I've recently had so many of them. Here is a picture of my little kitchen in Champaign.